Hm. I see Bangladesh is no longer the poster child of "climate refugee" alarmism - presumably because Bangladesh has been shown to be actually *gaining* land area, thanks to increased sedimentation in the Irrawaddy delta.

Which stands as an illustration that sea levels are a lot more complex than the simplistic "OMG! The ice is melting! We're all gunna drown!" scenarios perpetuated in the AGW literature.

Similarly, the situation with small Pacific island nations is also more complex than is being made out here. How much displacement is due to sinking land as opposed to rising seas? Is it also arguable that anyone living on an atoll scarce metres above sea level is pretty much living on borrowed time anyway? If these islanders are displaced, is it a continuation of the historical "island hopping" settlement patterns of small Pacific islands?

Is it also too cynical to suggest some nations are seeing this as a prime opportunity to milk some cash out of the guilt-ridden Jeremiahs of the West?

It was Tea Leone who grabbed on to Jason Robards arm in that disaster movie about a comet crashing in to the earth - and her final words were, as the one kilometre tidal wave beared down on them was ....

'daddy'.

Personally, I think the Liberals are taking their political strategy from the pro-climate changers who couldn't get their facts straight in a pink fit. In the last 24 hours we've had a raft of contradictory figures about global warming, deleted emails from pro-climate scientists and generally, it looks like we've now got Pacific Islanders wanting a new home.

Try Canberra.

Sooner or later the Mums and Dads are going to walk away from this issue. They will have had enough. You keep hitting a dog over the snout with a rolled up newspaper and it will soon get bored - or angry.

Either the earth is warming or it's not; either sea levels are rising or they're not. No one has the foggiest idea.

The question is whether we want to take more immigrants and will we take refugees on humanitarian grounds?

"Climate induced displacement is real ..."

Is it? There are so many vastly different stories about sea level rises (including those that say there are no dangerous rises) that this claim has to be taken with a grain of salt.

It's all a bit previous to start talking about 'xenophobia', how many climate change 'refugees' there will be, and who will or will not take them.

Anyone with Google Earth can take a look for themselves at the low-lying islands that are supposedly under threat from sea level rises, and compare the currently visible area with that shown in an old atlas (available for $5 at any St. Vinnie's). The result? -- not one shred, skerrick or particle of land less than there was fifty years ago.

Yet another lie by the AGW forces exposed. Isn't it awkward when the facts get in the way of a really nice theory?

Jon J, while it is true that sea levels have not yet risen significantly, that does not mean that AGW is not a threat. Most of the ice that is currently melting is North Polar ice which is floating, and as any elementary student of physics will tell you, a full glass with a large block of ice floating in it will not overflow as the ice melts.

There will be a different story when the Antarctic Ice which is resting on land makes its contribution to the rising sea level.

However, we do not need to go as far away as the Pacific Islands to find climate refugees. We will have a million or so of them on our own doorstep in the bayside suburbs of our major cities. That is when the population at large is going to sit up and take notice.

David